Austrian Gustav Mahler composes his Eighth Symphony, known as the "Symphony of a Thousand."

Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, one of the early works of the Cubist movement led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

British writer Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel Prize for literature.

A secret Russo-Japanese agreement carves up Manchuria into spheres of influence and renders Korea a de facto colony of Japan.

The Mauretania — with a top speed of twenty-five knots, the fastest ocean liner of the era — is launched in Great Britain, ushering in the age of elegant cruise ships.

Maria Montessori, who had earlier pioneered the education of children with below-normal capabilities, opens in Rome her first school for average children.

1 Jan.

Universal suffrage is instituted in Austria.

14 Jan.

An earthquake strikes Kingston, Jamaica, killing approximately fourteen hundred people.

26 Jan.

The premiere of Irish playwright John Millington Synge's The Playboy of...